


One Heartbeat (Two Heads)

by itsacoup



Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: Coming Out, Coming of Age, Growing Up, Growing Up Together, M/M, Reflection
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-23
Updated: 2017-04-23
Packaged: 2018-10-22 21:01:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,630
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10705023
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/itsacoup/pseuds/itsacoup
Summary: Two men in a locker room: black jerseys, golden triangles, penguins with hockey sticks. C and A, 87 and 71. Sid and Geno. They move with familiar ease around each other; with the sense of a ritual, they each reach out a hand, brush it against the other’s chest over the stiff shape of the gold-and-black crests.Theyhave plenty to tell you about the NHL before you get there. This is Sid’s journey, by whattheytold him and-- more importantly-- whattheydidn’t.





	One Heartbeat (Two Heads)

**Author's Note:**

> I saw a [gif](https://itsacoup.tumblr.com/post/159548480593). It gave me feelings. I wrote those feelings. Here they are. Thank you to pollyrepeat for pulling the article I couldn't find from the vaults, and many more to hotcrosbuns and arcadeghostadventurer for their beta and reassurance!

_Two men in a locker room: black jerseys, golden triangles, penguins with hockey sticks. C and A, 87 and 71. Sid and Geno. They move with familiar ease around each other; with the sense of a ritual, they each reach out a hand, brush it against the other’s chest over the stiff shape of the gold-and-black crests. Geno follows Sid’s hand as it withdraws, pulled by the endless gravity between them. They pause to lean together, faces aligning as they bump helmets. Geno must drop his chin to reach Sid’s helmet, too tall otherwise to make contact, and Sid tucks his in return, a nod of respect. They share a glance, and it doesn’t linger but it feels like it should, colored around the edges by the years between them. The moment breaks, and Geno winds up, firm but not aggressive, landing a tap on Sid’s ass. Until it contacts, Sid’s hand is still up, waiting, even though he’s turned away, headed towards the rink, and only once the pat is felt does he relax._

\------

When you’re in juniors, _they_ tell you all the time about the feeling of firsts: your first game in the show, your first bad injury, your first point, your first crushing defeat. _They_ talk about how you’ll be bright-eyed and eighteen and there’s no guarantees at all, let alone when you’re young and fresh, so maybe you’ll be stuck in the A for too long and maybe you’ll take the league by storm. A bare few, the top 1% of the top 1%, will become cup-holders, captains. Maybe both. It’s no guarantee, but it’s the most exhilarating promise, and you chase after every first like it’s the key to life eternal.

(It is. Your name on the Cup is the only eternal life any hockey player looks for.)

Sid has done it all: first game against the Devils. First point against them, too. _And_ first crushing defeat. (That was a hell of a game.) Then there was that fucking shot that broke his foot, pain he sweated through in secrecy for more than a month until they bombed out of playoffs. He makes it to the tier of dreams, captain and then cupholder, not once but twice.

The first time he put on a jersey for the show, it’s black and gold, and he hopes it’ll be the same for his last, a Penguin for life.

(He doesn’t realize it at the time, but eventually, he thinks it’s all he ever dreamed of. It’s impossible to imagine it any other way. Three chances out of forty-eight, six and a quarter percent, that’s all the odds were, but looking back-- it feels like fate.)

But still-- hockey isn’t just being eighteen and fresh and finding firsts around every corner. _They_ never tell you about the days that exhilaration isn’t enough, the days that practice is misery equal to being away from the ice, the days that the media is relentless and heartless, all swirling together in a hellish circle of dissatisfaction and poisonous locker rooms. _They_ never tell you about watching your team go on without you for days, weeks, months, how they flourish and you’re sick to your stomach because you don’t know if it’s because of or in spite of you. _They_ never tell you about the teammates that fade in and out of existence, called up and sent down and put on IR and traded and retired.

 _They_ never tell you about the other kind of teammate, either. The ones that are there, year after year, alongside you as they’re celebrating each victory and cursing at each loss. They bring a bottle of your favorite wine when they come over for dinner, even though they know you don’t drink during the season, and you have one glass because you can’t not, because it’s for him. You take them dinner when they’re out on IR, withdrawn, and there’s no victory like the sound of his laugh. _They_ never tell you about the rituals, the ways you learn to move around each other, in perfect orbit until some hidden sense says _go_ and you go.

 

( _They_ never tell you, either, how sometimes your heart will ache for him like it aches for the ice, how any distance is too much distance, how you could spend your entire life thinking about him, praising him, waiting for him. _They_ never tell you that he could feel the same way, that you could crash together like an open-ice check and stay together. It’s terrifying and exhilarating and as integral to Sid’s hockey as pucks and nets. Eventually-- Sid and hockey and him are all as one, bound by losses and late nights and laughter and lust and _love_.

 _They_ never tell you-- sometimes what you love the most must stay a secret.)

 

Sid brushes his fist against the crest on Geno’s jersey, and Geno’s body follows as he pulls away, like he obeys an order, like Sid grabbed his jersey and tugged. (Sid doesn’t need to grab for Geno to follow. Sometimes he does, though, just for the satisfaction of the cloth bunched between his fingers, the way the crest is stiff and silky against his skin, the intoxicating power of Geno fiercely obedient.) They’ve done this a hundred times over and a thousand times again, in front of cameras, in grimly quiet locker rooms ready for defeat, at potlucks, on dance floors. Still, every time, the glance they share as they knock foreheads reaches down into Sid with pure electricity, everything in his body and soul singing in unison with what he sees in Geno’s eyes. It’s years of intimacy distilled into a single moment, and every time it leaves Sid a little off-balanced, the earth moving beneath him from the power of it. Then Geno winds up, taps Sid on the ass, the perfect mix of gentle and determined. _Go_. Sid goes.

 

They hit the ice, one after another, soaring like birds, a flock of two.

They win. Elvis has left the building, because the two-headed monster entered it.

 

 _They_ don’t tell you about two-headed monsters when you’re eighteen and fresh-faced, ready for firsts. For a long time, Sid is furious. How could _they_ hide this exhilaration, this exaltation, how could _they_ talk about victory without mentioning this greatest victory? _They_ say, _you’ll never forget your first point_ , but not _you’ll never forget your first celly with him_?

( _They_ don’t say, _you’ll always remember the first time you fucked_ , either, but-- Sid isn’t surprised by that one.)

In the end, though, he understands. There’s no words for it, the way two hearts beat in unison, the way you know where he is at all times, the way the whole world lights up together on every celly together, every _moment_ together.

It’s not a first, but a last.

 

Sid stopped chasing after firsts a long time ago. Now his eyes turn towards his last. It’s no guarantee, but it’s the most exhilarating promise, and Sid will keep chasing after Geno until all that’s left of them is their names on the Cup.

 

\------

**_You talk about Sidney Crosby a fair bit. He talks about you, too. But are you tired of talking about him?_ **

_No._

**_Really? It must get old._ **

_[Laughs.] I mean, it’s nothing new. I always say the same thing._

**_What’s that?_ **

_He’s the best player in the NHL. I’m always saying that and I never change my thinking._

**_And that’s that?_ **

_Yeah._

\------

The time comes: last game, last bad injury, last point, last crushing defeat. Last cup.

Last celly with Geno.

 

First retirement interview.

 

There’s a video compilation, and for the first time ever, Sid watches hockey video not to learn, but only to remember. His heart squeezes: cup celebrations, interviews (some with him missing half his teeth or clenching his jaw against the endless headaches), clips of the whole team wearing the C for him and of goals and cellys and big hits and fights and--

A clip of him and Geno. Chest tap, headbutt, ass pat.

The interviewer turns to him. “You’ve been asked to comment on Geno for most of your playing career, just as he’s been asked to comment on you. So, one last time-- what’s the future of the two-headed monster? Now that you’re off the ice, is that the end of Sid and Geno?”

“I hope not,” Sid says, and it’s too raw, too honest. He reminds himself-- _you can do this now_. A new first, a different first. An honest first. “For as long as he’ll have me, I’ll stay. Our first time meeting, playing together, was a long time ago now, and I hope our last time together is even further in the future.”

“Your last time together--” The reporter struggles a little, conflicted and curious.

“In juniors, before you hit your draft year, everyone tells you about what the NHL will be like,” Sid says. The reporter’s confusion grows, but it’s not a non-sequitur to Sid, it’s the most important narrative he knows about his life, about hockey. About Geno. “Nobody told me that I’d find love like I did. The love of my team, but also the love of a partner. Nobody told me that I could fall in love so deeply, off the ice and on, that the whole world would call us the two-headed monster and not even realize-- what else is there.”

The reporter gapes a little, lips moving indistinctly before saying, “And-- that’s that?”

“Yeah,” Sid says. He looks past the reporter. Geno smiles, pulls a hand from his pocket to give Sid a thumbs up. A wink, filled with promise, follows.

( _They_ never tell you-- sometimes what you love the most doesn’t have to stay a secret forever.)

 

That’s that.

 

**Author's Note:**

> The Geno interview transcription is the one from [Sportsnet](http://www.sportsnet.ca/hockey/nhl/the-interview-evgeni-malkin/) which, if you somehow still haven’t read it, is excellent and I highly recommend because it will give you even more feels.
> 
> Come say hi on [tumblr](http://itsacoup.tumblr.com)!


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